1,721,036 research outputs found
Citations of "Difference": Human/Non-Human, Mutations, and Contaminations in Utopian/Dystopian Television Series
No full textThe essay explores the relationship human/non-human (a dichotomy per se problematic) in the television series Wayward Pines and True Blood. The contamination between utopia, dystopia, post-apocalyptic, and gothic fiction that characterizes them (although in different thematic and structural modes) is the passage where social and cultural issues together with fears and desires are exposed and elaborated. Formally constructed as a utopia, Wayward Pines is a postmodern, post-apocalyptic show, reproducing many patterns of classical dystopias. It presents insurmountable boundaries separating it from the outside, and is established on a system based on “surveilling and punishing”. The closed, rigid borders, both material and symbolic, that also involve issues of gender, otherness, and identity, unfold in the relationship between humans and non-humans as a reflection of the fears of possible contamination and death, haunted by the memory of the primitive as the zero degree of civilization and women as functional in the system. Binary oppositions such as town/wilderness, civilization/primitive, reason/state of nature can be seen as a citation derived from primitivist cultural representations. By expressing different forms of life that exceed the binary thought, True Blood focuses on potentially subversive representations of sexual preferences, “ethnicities”, and classes, evoking civil rights against prejudices and many forms of discrimination. Overcoming the human/non-human dichotomy, the show succeeds in portraying a continuum of evolving, mutable, and mutating identities to give poetic and political space to new forms of posthumanism. At the same time, the increase of conflicts amongst different “species” and vampire groups might reassert the same dichotomy that True Blood has attempted to overcome, thus possibly depriving utopia/dystopia of its subversive powers. Despite their structural diversity, these television series are significant of an urgent quest not only to produce new meanings for identity and otherness, but also to envisage radically new forms of subjectivities in post-postcolonial and posthuman times
Tecnologie del trauma e i limiti dell’empatia in The Secret Life of Words (Isabel Coixet, 2005)
No full textThe Secret Life of Words (Director Isabel Coixet, 2005) respects the ontological paradox of traumatic events: trauma is a wound within oneself that cries out to be heard, but at the same time it cannot be expressed, as it is a fracture in the continuity of the cognitive experience (either individual or collective). The film shows the technological devices that mediate and “transmit” the trauma: it is only through the traumatic experience of the other and the different elements of mediation that Hanna – a survivor from the wars in the former Yugoslavia - and Josef - wounded in a fire on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean - can recognize their own trauma. Coixet uses cinema as a third space, as a platform for the elaboration of the relationship not only between voice and silence, which is distinctive, for example, of cinema and feminist discourse, but also on sound and acoustics. Central is the narrative that replaces the visual, to signal the refusal of a voyeuristic attitude, and to reveal the limits of the representation of trauma. Above all, the narrative expresses the necessity of an empathic listening, yet respecting the limits of an impossible, complete identification with the pain of others. At the same time, the film testifies to the need to remember and to witness the traumas of history
Under the Skin: Science Fiction as Posthuman Cultural Ecology
Full text linkConsidering science fiction under the perspective of cultural ecology and as a ‘special case’ of re-mediation, Under the Skin, a novel by Michel Faber (2000) and the homonymous movie directed by Jonathan Glazer (2013) can be considered as ‘imaginative counter discourses’ exploring the posthuman subject. Science fiction, by offering multiple interpretative (im)possibilities of the real transcending the necessity of mimetic transparency, is an exploration of the possible laterals of experience. Both the novel and the movie, in interdependent ways, face in imaginative forms complex interspecies relations, gender violence, the separation between nature and technology, the exploitation of living beings in the consumerist world. ‘Under the skin’ indicates the communal humanity offended and claims the recognition of the interdependence between the self and the other, within the ecosystem and the media that ‘mediate’ and communicate them
L'immaginario utopico, uguaglianza di genere e letteratura della donne
No full textThe Utopian Imaginary, Gender Equality, and Women’s Writings.
The essay analyses the utopian imaginary in women’s writings with
specific reference to the 1970s. Since the late 19th century, utopia as a
genre becomes a space to deconstruct and re-elaborate women’s identity
and subjectivity. The appropriation of the utopian paradigm enriches the
classical critique of the existing social systems with the deconstruction of
gender roles and female stereotypes as a means to fight gender
discrimination as well as other forms of oppression which lie at the
foundation of the Western symbolic and social orders. It also implies the
restructuring of the technical and stylistic devices of the utopian genre.
The imaginary worlds represent a space of empowerment that will enable
the transformation of power systems, gender and sexual policies against
any discriminations. This transformation is seen as salvific for both men
and women
La luce invisibile della memoria
No full textLa prefazione, in forma di saggio, collega le poesie dell'autrice alla critica letteraria, alla storia dell'arte e agli studi sulla memoria. In particolare si analizzano le poesie alla luce degli studi letterali e visuali, mettendo in evidenza intertestualita' e transcodificazioni di genere
“I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess”: Genealogies, Re-Visions of the Body, and Feminist Figurations
No full textRetracing women’s genealogies is not only “an act of survival”, but also a radical deconstruction of the western symbolic order where women have represented the “other” of man. This act starts from the reappropriation of language, re-visions of the female body, and the recognition of women’s multifaceted and heterogeneous traditions. Theorizing continuities and discontinuities in gender constructions implies envisaging new figurations capable of elaborating and prospecting new forms of identity and subjectivity. Luce Irigaray’s divine women, Hélène Cixous’s laughing Medusa, the posthuman images of the nomadic feminist subjects (Rosi Braidotti), and the feminist cyborg (Donna Haraway) are connected to the analyses of the queer, the drag, and the abject by Judith Butler in order to highlight the heterogeneity of feminist thought, but also a transversal continuity in women’s critical traditions
Utopia
No full textNel tempo, l’utopia ha assunto diversi significati, ma l’accento prevalente ha sottolineato la sua caratteristica interdisciplinare e il suo valore socio-politico. È in primo luogo un genere letterario, che comprende anche i mondi alla rovescia, i paesi di cuccagna, la distopia e la fantascienza. È anche una teoria legata a riflessioni politiche e filosofiche, alla storia delle idee, delle dottrine, all’architettura delle città ideali. È collegata a pratiche sociali che nella storia si sono concretizzate attraverso la formazione di costruzioni comunitarie (utopismo). Una riflessione critica sull’utopia la rivede come uno spazio di d’interrogazione aperta attraverso due domande cruciali: utopia per chi? E a quale costo? Si tratta dunque di mantenere inclusività ed eterogeneità come parti strutturali dell’utopia, includendo differenze e diversità come fonti di equilibrio e di garanzia di pace e di uguaglianza. L’utopia è una visione, ma è anche un processo e un metodo critico che dovrebbe restare sempre aperto
Solidarietà
No full textLa solidarietà può essere considerata come una lente attraverso cui è possibile riconoscere, valorizzare e rispettare le diversità. Quando la reazione nei confronti dell’alterità è priva di solidarietà, la risposta più comune è quella della paura e dell’odio, portando a una distanza conflittuale. La solidarietà è uno strumento indispensabile per prospettare nuove forme di cittadinanza, attraverso una riconsiderazione di questioni cruciali quali i diritti umani, l’uguaglianza e l’equità di genere, lo sviluppo sostenibile, la povertà, la giustizia globale, la libertà e la pace. La solidarietà è assai lontana dalla retorica della tolleranza che resta profondamente gerarchica. È una pratica di azione sociale che difende le comunità contro egemonie, dominazioni e genocidi, coltivando la responsabilità collettiva e preservando le diversità
Gentilezza
No full textLa gentilezza ha nel tempo subito una femminilizzazione e per questo è stata denigrata. Ma la gentilezza è la nozione che media tra la vulnerabilità della tenerezza e la forza della solidarietà. La femminilizzazione della gentilezza fin dall’antichità è il risultato di una logica binaria, che considera gli uomini razionali e le donne emotive. Tale svalutazione della gentilezza è continuata anche nell’era moderna, con l’affermazione dell’individualismo competitivo, e nella nostra contemporaneità, dove le persone si dividono tra vincitori e perdenti e la scortesia viene coltivata come paradigma educativo. Non solo, ma oggi la gentilezza scompare per dare sempre più spazio a manifestazioni di rabbia e odio, quasi a reprimere un’umanità troppo spesso svilita e negata
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